


Les Cousins Dangereux

by Annakovsky



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-15
Updated: 2006-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:29:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor Summers's real memories start coming back that summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Les Cousins Dangereux

**Author's Note:**

> This was my entry in the Lynnevitational on livejournal. For fodian and kita0610 and swmbo, without whose - what is the word I'm looking for? Oh yes, "encouragement" - this would not exist. Thanks to Kyra Cullinan and Swm for beta duty. This fic is an elaboration on a fic I wrote earlier, [in which Connor had been inserted into five different TV families after "Home"](http://annakovsky.livejournal.com/157020.html), one of which was as Buffy and Dawn's brother.  
> **WARNING:** INCEST. Between people who are not exactly related for a number of reasons, but still. Be aware.

Connor's not quite sure what things are going to be like post-Sunnydale. The summer after you graduate high school isn't really supposed to start with your older sister defeating ancient evil by making your hometown into a giant crater, but hey, Connor's flexible. Being Buffy's brother means he's good at things being freaktastic.

He's pretty sure most of his friends got out before Sunnydale collapsed in on itself. He thinks, anyway. The day after, he and his sisters and the Scoobies and the Potentials and everybody who got out of Sunnydale on the schoolbus are all trying to regroup. The ones who aren't in the hospital are all staying in a cheap motel, but he and Dawn are the only ones hanging around without anything to do. Everyone else is visiting at the hospital, or talking to the government or reporters, or trying to straighten out their insurance policies or the defunct Watchers' Council accounts so that they can afford to eat. Connor's not sorry that the Potentials are all busy - whenever they're around, they always giggle and stare at him and occasionally ask him out, like because he's the only guy their age around, it's open season. And whatever, they're hot, mostly, but there's ten million of them, and all the staring makes him very uncomfortable. Plus, they keep talking about, like, tampons in front of him, which is not awesome.

He and Dawn are both wearing the clothes they got at WalMart the day before, cheap and functional. Dawn's got her hair in braids, which shows off the bruise on her temple and makes her look young. Connor's new jeans are a little too long for him - he can barely see his sneakers. It's weird not to own anything anymore, to have all your belongings crushed under the weight of a town. It probably should feel freeing, in a Tyler Durden, the-things-you-own-end-up-owning-you kind of way, but he's mostly just wishing he'd worn his favorite shirt to fight the First Evil and that he'd kept pictures of people in his wallet. Of his mom, for instance.

The two of them are spending the afternoon down by the pool, where Dawn's kicking at the water with her bare foot to see what kinds of patterns she can make. Connor's in a lawn chair, squinting into the sun. They don't even have any books.

Dawn almost slips and falls into the pool, but catches herself. "Watch it," Connor says mildly.

She rolls her eyes but sprawls into the chair next to him. "I wonder what happened to Janice," she says.

He turns his head to look at her and wishes he had sunglasses. It's only May and already it's hot as hell. Southern California, man. "I thought you and Janice weren't talking after the, you know…" he trails off and waves his hand vaguely.

"Vampire make-out thing?" Dawn says. "So? Just because we weren't talking doesn't mean I want her to be dead."

"You weren't talking for, like, over a year," Connor says.

"So?" Dawn says. "Shut up."

The sun's beating down on him, and Connor can feel that he's starting to burn but he doesn't want to go back inside and sit in the dingy hotel room. They don't have any sunscreen.

"You wanna walk into town?" Dawn asks.

"Whatever," he says. "Better than dying of boredom, I guess."

Their motel's on the outskirts of some tiny town, the first place they found a hospital. It's maybe a fifteen minute walk from the motel before you hit the main street, so that's not bad. Not that there's much there. A Laundromat, a one-screen movie theater showing _The Matrix Reloaded_, a diner, a thrift store, the WalMart they'd gone to the night before, towering alone in a massive expanse of a parking lot. There's a pay phone outside the Laundromat.

"I'm going to call Janice," Dawn says. "Give me thirty-five cents."

"What makes you think I have money?"

"You always have money," Dawn says. "You're a miser. I used to steal it out of your sock drawer when I was little."

"What?!" Connor says, but he's already getting his wallet out. He does have money - before Buffy killed Sunnydale, he'd just cashed his last paycheck from Old Navy. "You're such a brat," he says, and slaps a quarter and dime into her outstretched hand.

"Hey, it's not my fault you're a sucker," Dawn says, lifting the receiver. He watches as she dials Janice's number, leaning against the wall next to the phone. "Hello?" she says into the mouthpiece. "Janice? It's Dawn. Oh my God, are you okay?" Dawn makes a face at him and a shooing gesture, so he rolls his eyes and wanders off to give her some privacy. He ends up going into the thrift store, since it seems more interesting than the Laundromat.

This ends up being the jackpot, and by the time Dawn comes to find him, he's holding a pile of things to buy which includes three shirts, a jacket, four paperback science fiction novels, an Archie comic, and a battery powered radio.

"What're you getting?" she says, grabbing the top book off the pile.

"Survival materials," Connor says. "If I don't have anything to read, I'm going to end up talking to the Potentials. No, thanks."

"Seriously," Dawn says. "I better get some stuff too." She looks at him expectantly.

Connor lets out an exasperated sigh, but gives her a twenty. "I want change from that," he tells her, and she smirks. He heads for the pay phone to call everyone he knows too.

Mike and his parents are at his aunt's house in Seattle, and Ryan and his family are in a hotel in LA, and Meredith's all the way across the country in DC. That conversation's the most awkward - Connor and Meredith were kind of maybe going to be a thing. He was taking her to prom, and they had kissed once, by the juniper tree in Haylee Walker's backyard, at the party Haylee threw when her parents went of town. But there isn't any more high school and who knows where Haylee Walker is now, and Meredith's on the opposite coast saying something about freak sinkholes, and he doesn't know how to talk to her any more. But he tells her he'll write, and scribbles her address on the back of his hand, and the time runs out on the call so at least that's over. He thinks he should feel sadder than he does, but Dawn comes up before he can figure out exactly how he does feel, so.

Justin's the only one he can't get in touch with, but it doesn't necessarily mean that, you know. Maybe his cell phone's just off. Connor leaves a message as Dawn fidgets.

There's still more of the day to kill, so they see _The Matrix Reloaded_ (which sucks), and get ice cream at the diner, and browse through stuff at WalMart (more books, plus Dawn gets nail polish and he gets sunscreen). So by the time they wander back to the motel, it's late enough that Buffy's back from the hospital and she yells at them for making her worry. Dawn crosses her arms across her chest and Connor slumps against the wall, and together they are a united front of sullen teenager. It's always been them against Buffy, ever since she started climbing out windows in the middle of the night and making their parents fight. That, plus she's a lot older than them, and pretty bossy.

There's a Scooby meeting in Giles's room that they're required to attend, but Connor mostly just doodles and ignores them. He's working on a comic idea, a superhero, maybe. But for some reason his hero keeps turning out to be evil after all, like Connor can't stop it happening. It's very perturbing. He's so engrossed in this problem of his hero constantly turning out to be a werewolf or a vampire or a corporate executive that he doesn't notice Dawn's amusing herself by painting his toenails purple until she's already done his whole left foot.

"Hey!" he says, kicking at her, and it must be louder than he means it to be 'cause it actually stops Buffy's monologue.

"I'm sorry, is the official business interrupting you two?"

Buffy really does have an excellent glare. Sometimes Connor wonders if she practices it in the mirror.

"Yeah, a little," Dawn says, and gets them both kicked out. Connor thinks he sees Xander and Willow suppressing smiles, but he's not quite sure.

He and Dawn go back to her motel room to watch TV, and all the walking in the sun must've tired them out enough that they just crash, because the next thing Connor knows, they're waking up in their clothes on top of the covers on her bed. His head aches and his belt buckle's digging into his stomach and his teeth badly need to be brushed, and he feels like he's lost something important. It takes him a minute to remember that it's probably Sunnydale.

**

Giles finally gets ahold of the Council's main accounts, and suddenly they're rich, sort of. In theory. On paper, Giles says. They rent a giant house near the beach for at least the summer, in between Sunnydale and L.A. with room for everybody plus extra Slayers that might be arriving. Buffy is talking about a Slayer Academy, like they're the freaking X-Men or something, because clearly what they all really want is to be overrun by Potentials for the rest of their lives. Connor secretly hopes that their dad will come get him and Dawn, maybe make them a halfway normal family without demons crashing through their windows every two days, but when Dad finally calls back, having "thought it over," his new wife doesn't have room for them with the baby coming. Instead, he wires them $1000 of guilt money each, like that makes up for it. Though it does end up being handy for Connor and Dawn, since none of the Council money seems to trickle down to them. They invest in bicycles and ice cream sundaes, mostly. Used CDs. An old Super Nintendo for cheap on eBay.

The thing about the big new house is, you have to be strategic, and Connor and Dawn knew going in that room choice was key. The place is three stories, plus a basement and attic, and there are a lot of nice rooms, but it was when they got to the attic that they knew they'd hit the jackpot.

Fact: Southern California is very hot in summer.

Fact: Heat rises.

Fact: No central air.

Fact: Three stories plus attic is a lot of stairs.

Fact: Super strength does not mean you are not lazy.

Conclusion: No one will ever, ever bother going all the way up to the attic if they can possibly help it.

It's so theirs. Plus, there's a ping pong table up there.

***

Their attic's ceiling slopes, so you have to crouch when you get too close to the outside walls, and there aren't real beds up there so they end up with Connor on a futon and Dawn on an air mattress, and it's a little old and not quite finished so there's one place where you have to be careful of a nail (Connor keeps meaning to get a hammer and fix it), and their furniture is haphazard, which means they have a lot of bookshelves made out of boards and cinder blocks. And it really is hot up there. But. There are big dormer windows that let in a ton of light, and window seats, and a skylight, and it's quiet, and it's far away from annoying people, and so it is perfect in every way that matters. Buffy doesn't even seem to mind that the two of them are cross-sex sharing a room, but Connor had overheard Giles saying something to her about people needing to cling to familiarity when so much has been lost, blah blah, so, there you go.

Whatever. It's not like he and Dawn are big sad losers who are "clinging" to each other out of grief or something weird and pathetic. They talk to other people. Or, well, they don't, but it's not their fault that the only other people around are annoying. It's not like it's Connor's fault that everyone sucks but Dawn.

So maybe they're a little sad or whatever about Anya and Spike, and maybe it kind of sucks that they lost everything, and maybe they'd like to be able to visit their mom's grave, but that doesn't mean anything. It's normal. Dawn cries at night, really quietly. He can just hear her sniffling and breathing weird, and he wants to say something but every time he starts to she pretends she's fine. Like he hasn't seen her cry before, like it's a big deal. After a couple nights he starts playing the radio really softly as they fall asleep, because it bothers him, her crying. Like, you know how when someone else throws up, and you hear it, you kind of want to throw up too? Yeah. So. He plays the radio. And that's what nights sound like, after Sunnydale. Traffic noises faint outside, coming through the open windows, and fans whirring steadily in the hot air, and Kelly Clarkson on the radio. Dawn crying underneath.

Dawn finds out that the Council's money will pay for books in dead languages, so she starts filling their makeshift bookshelves with the Loeb Classical Library and the State Archives of Assyria and anything else she can con Giles into paying for. Connor then makes it a point to go to the used bookstore and buy the cheapest, genre-est books he can find. She rolls her eyes, but when he's reading, sprawled out by the window in just a pair of shorts trying to keep cool, he catches her casting envious looks at his beat-up copy of _Ender's Game_. So whatever, Dawn. And the next day when he's going downstairs to get a snack, she's coming out of the bathroom holding a romance novel and when she sees him she turns bright red. So 1) ha, ha, who's the loser now, and 2) gross.

**

By the middle of June, they've got a routine, most days. Off to the beach before lunch, slipping out of the house before Andrew can glom onto them. They're getting brown and Connor's hair is lighter from the sun. Things have gotten to be quiet and familiar, like it's all settling down into a recognizable pattern, like everything might be okay.

Until the day when it all starts falling apart again. That particular day, they don't head home until the sun is setting over the water and the shadows are getting long. Dawn shakes the sand off her towel as Connor pulls his green t-shirt back on and shoves his sketchbook into his messenger bag. He's tired with that good, summery feeling, where your skin is itchy with salt and warm from the sun, and there's sand sticking to your feet and you feel like stretching your body out like a cat. They bike home in the dusk, slow and easy on the quiet streets, not talking much, and the air on his face feels good. Dawn's in cut-offs and pink flip-flops and insects hum under the trees, and he's happy.

When they get to the house, Giles and Willow are in the driveway, loading suitcases into the trunk of a car, and there's a limo next to them that Connor doesn't recognize. He and Dawn both slide off their bikes before they come to a stop and Willow smiles.

"You're off?" Dawn says.

"Taking the red-eye to Madrid," Willow says. The Scoobies are always going somewhere to find new Slayers. Xander's in South Korea at the moment, Connor thinks. Somewhere around there, anyway.

"Have fun," Dawn says. "Fight a bull for me."

"Whose limo is that?" Connor asks. It's long and black, with tinted windows, and it's creeping him out a little bit.

Willow and Giles glance at each other. "That particular vehicle belongs to Angel," Giles says, in his disapproving voice.

Dawn rolls her eyes. "What is he doing here? Isn't he evil now?"

"He came to talk to Buffy," Willow says. "I think. I don't know, he was kind of cagey."

"Ugh," Dawn says.

Giles puts the last suitcase in the car. "Well, we have a plane to catch," Willow says, and there are hugs and handshakes before they drive off.

Connor and Dawn put their bikes in the garage. "Fight a bull?" Connor says. "Were you reading Hemingway again?"

"I like Hemingway," Dawn says, and toes down her kickstand. "What's wrong with Hemingway?"

"Nothing," Connor says. "If you like abrupt sentences and manliness."

Dawn punches him on the arm as they walk into the house from the garage. "Well, you wouldn't know anything about manliness."

"Shut it," he says, and there's a scuffle as he tries to tickle her and she shoves him off, and they tumble into the kitchen laughing.

Buffy's leaning against the counter and Angel's standing in the doorway that connects the kitchen and dining room, frowning at her. There's a tense silence between them. When Angel sees Dawn and Connor, he stares at them like he's never seen them before.

Something about the way the doorway is framing Angel's body does something weird to Connor's head. There's a roaring in his ears, and he suddenly has this really vivid mental image of Angel chained up in a box like a coffin, and himself nailing down the lid. They're on a boat - Connor can smell the ocean, practically, it's so vivid, and he's so angry his hands are shaking, it takes him a couple of tries to get the first nail in.

Then the image is gone again, and Connor's holding onto Dawn's shoulder to keep his balance, trying to catch his breath. Dawn stares at him. "Are you okay?"

He blinks and then pries his fingers off her, tries to act normal. "Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Lost my balance for a second."

When he looks up, Buffy looks concerned, and Angel's staring at him with this weird look on his face. A hungry, desperate look. And you don't really want a vampire looking at you hungrily.

"You guys have fun at the beach?" Buffy asks.

"Yup," Dawn says. And then a bunch of Potentials come into the room to raid the cold cereal, and in the rush of bodies Dawn and Connor head back up to their room. Connor tries to shake it off.

**

That night, Connor has this horrible dream. He's a little kid in this hellish, sulfurous landscape full of fire, and his dad's tying him to a tree. He wants to cry, but he doesn't. His dad steps back, but it's not Hank Summers, it's someone he doesn't recognize. "Stephen," his not-dad says, and smiles. "Come and find me." And then he just leaves Connor there for the monsters.

He wakes up to Dawn shaking him. "Connor!" she's saying. "Wake up already!"

"What?" he says, and his voice comes out louder than he means it to. The sky outside is turning pink - it's really early.

"You were having nightmares," Dawn says, and sits back on her heels on the floor next to the futon where he's sleeping. She's just wearing shorts and a tank top and her hair's in a messy ponytail, and for some reason he's really aware of her breasts. She's not wearing a bra. Well, of course she's not, she doesn't sleep in a bra. Why is he even thinking about this? "You woke me up. Were you dreaming about Sunnydale?"

He sits up, bunching the covers over his lap, and looks away. Tries to act really interested in the Avril Lavigne poster on the wall across from him. "Huh? Oh. No. It was… something else."

"What?" Dawn says. "I haven't heard you that freaked out over a nightmare since you saw _E.T._ and thought he was going to come and get you."

"Hey, I was *five*, okay?" Connor says, but Dawn's making fun of him like normal and he already feels better. His heart is slowing back down.

"E.T. phone home!" Dawn says, and points her finger at him and crosses her eyes, and he slaps her hand away.

"Shut up." But he's smiling.

Dawn shrugs and grins at him. "Nightmares suck," she says, and gets up. Her legs are really long and smooth looking, and the shorts she sleeps in are really short.

She is his *sister*. What is wrong with him?

"You gonna be okay?" she says, looking down at him. He nods. "Okay, then I am totally going back to sleep. It's like five in the morning." She rolls back under her covers and for a long time he lies there looking at the curve of her back, listening to the birds starting to chirp outside. That dream had felt so real, like a memory of something that never happened, and he's getting turned on by his sister's back, and he doesn't know what the hell is going on with him.

When he finally goes back to sleep, he dreams he cuts some guy's ear off.

**

The dreams keep going, night after night. He dreams he has sex with Cordelia, for instance. But not Cordelia the way she was in high school, when she was Xander's girlfriend and Connor had totally had his first crush on her. He dreams he has sex with Cordelia the way she looks now, while fire is raining down from the sky in Los Angeles. None of it makes any sense. It's like he had some whole other life he didn't even know about.

It's a rainy afternoon, and he's sitting on the window seat in the attic, watching the rain drip down the window and trying to read. Not being too successful at it, either - Ursula Le Guin is not holding his attention today.

Dawn comes drearily in and he tries not to wince. He's still having - uh, issues. With her. Not that she's noticed. She walks right over to him and shoves his feet over. "Scoot," she says, and sits down on the other end of the window seat, so that his feet are nudged against her hip and her feet are nudged against his. "It's gross out," she says, like this is the most depressing thing ever.

"No joke," he says.

"And the Potentials are doing their calisthenics inside," she says.

"Is that what that thumping is?" he asks.

Dawn makes a face and nods.

"Great," he says. She slumps even further down and stares out the window. He has a flash of false memory, of a skinny girl named Fred, but luckily it doesn't last too long. He hates this. But maybe it's better than sitting there noticing that Dawn has really nice lips, which is his next problem.

"Hey," he says, but then pauses, trying to think what to say. Dawn looks at him expectantly. "Um. Do you ever, like, have memories of being the Key? Like, of not being Dawn?"

Dawn blinks at him, but then looks thoughtful. "I don't know. Once in awhile I get a feeling about it. In certain places. Like on the Hellmouth, or sometimes at churches, or outside at night, when everything's quiet. Like, this expansive feeling. I guess that could be the Key. Or it could just be, you know, life. So I don't know. Why?"

Connor shrugs. "No reason." She rests her head against the wall behind her, and watches the rain out the window, her legs warm against his, and he tries to tell himself that she's not really his sister. She's the Key. There's nothing wrong with being attracted to the Key. Right? And he's not even attracted to her. It's, like, a phase or something. He'll get over it, if he can just stop dreaming.

**

The next day when they bike home from the beach, the whole house is empty and quiet and dark. "Where is everybody?" Dawn asks, and the silence is eerie after so long with so many people crammed into every corner.

They wander into the kitchen, and Connor flips on the lights but it still feels dark. There's a note on the counter in Buffy's handwriting, and a twenty dollar bill. _Connor and Dawn, we kind of had a demon emergency. So me and the Slayers and Andrew went down to L.A. to take care of it. Everybody else is still out of town. We'll be back late, but don't worry, it should be a piece of cake. Order a pizza and enjoy the house to yourself! Love, Buffy_.

"Pepperoni?" Dawn says, picking up the cordless and he nods. It should be fun to have the whole place empty, but it mostly just feels creepy. While they're waiting for the pizza, they play Mario Kart on the big screen TV downstairs, and he beats her three times, but it's not even fun. They watch the Real World while they eat.

"This house is too big," Dawn says. "And I never thought I'd say that when I always have to line up for the bathroom."

"Yeah, no joke," Connor says. "I wonder what the demon emergency was."

"I can't believe they took Andrew," Dawn says, and drops the crust of her pizza back onto her plate. "And didn't wait for us."

"You wanted to fight demons?" Connor says, stretching out on the couch.

"No, but they could ask!" Dawn says. Connor laughs. "I wish we lived with Dad," Dawn mutters, and looks away.

"Yeah," Connor says. He dips his crust in garlic sauce and watches the Real World kids drunkenly make out for a second. "You wanna call him?"

Dawn shrugs but sort of smiles, and Connor goes to get the phone.

**

His new wife says he can't come to the phone, but could she take a message?

"This is his son," Connor says. "It's important."

There's a pause, and rustling like she's covering the phone with her hand. "Oh, hi, Connor," she says finally. "I can have him call you back when he gets in, how about that?"

"Yeah, okay," Connor says, and when he hangs up, Dawn's frowning. "He wasn't there," Connor says to her, but he doesn't really believe it.

"Yeah, well, he never is," Dawn mutters, and looks like she's about to cry. Her mouth twists, and then she says, "He's not my real dad anyway. No wonder he doesn't want to talk to me." She turns the TV back on and starts flipping channels.

"Shut up," Connor says. "He's as much your dad as mine. It's not our fault he sucks."

Dawn is glaring at the television, where Bart Simpson is paying Lenny and Carl to kiss. "Well," Dawn says, as the Behind the Laughter announcer says some ridiculous metaphor she and Connor don't laugh at. "If he's our real dad, he's like the dad in Hansel and Gretel or something. He might as well have left us in the forest where all the evil things live."

In the dark house where they live with a literal witch, with their older sister out fighting literal monsters, it's hard to argue with. "I guess I should've brought breadcrumbs," Connor says in a lame attempt at a joke, but Dawn doesn't laugh. At anything in the whole episode of the Simpsons, actually, but nothing much seems funny to him either, so. Anyway, she doesn't cry until they go up to bed. He turns the radio up - it's Jimmy Eat World, singing about not writing yourself off yet. Connor wants to hit somebody.

**

He wakes up in the middle of the night when Dawn crawls into bed with him. He had been dreaming about a woman with a maggot-face, and how she'd loved him, and the lonely agonized longing of the dream is surprising. Especially considering the maggots. He hadn't known you could feel quite that empty, that you could want anything that much.

"Dawn," he says, still half asleep, and she's shaking. "Hey," he says, waking up, and she curls up on his chest. He puts his arm around her and feels tears when he touches her face. "Nightmares?" She nods, and holds onto him, gasping for breath like something's been chasing her. "Sucko," he says, and pats her hair in what he hopes is a brotherly way.

Unfortunately, she is a girl, and girl parts are pressed up against his chest, and she smells really good, and he's still half in the dream. He must be, because he can't help it, he starts to get hard. He knows when she feels it, too, because she suddenly goes really still. He tries to inch away, but she's on top of him, so he can't, really, and fuck, fuck, this is not good.

Then she says in this strange voice, "I'm not really your sister, you know."

He can hardly catch his breath. "Shut up," he says, but really quietly, and then she puts her hand on the back of his neck and kisses him, a little clumsily.

She has really soft lips and tastes like tears and toothpaste. She's just wearing a tank top and shorts, and he's just in pajama pants with no shirt, and the fan is whirring away and their skin is sticking together in the heat. She opens her mouth and he kisses her, his hands edging up under her shirt, his thumb tracing the ridge of her spine. She makes a soft noise in the back of her throat and presses into him, and she's not really his sister, not even if he can remember her having a Care Bears lunch box, not even if he can remember their mom taking them to swimming lessons, not even then.

They're at the top of a dark empty house, and their father won't return their calls, and all their friends are scattered and their mother is dead and it's just the two of them, refugees from a haunted town, and maybe Giles is right and they're clinging out of grief after all. Connor wonders if Hansel and Gretel did this at the witch's house, or in the woods before they got there, when they realized they were lost and couldn't find their way back. Moonlight's making window-shaped patterns of pale light on the floor next to them.

Dawn's breasts fit nicely into his hands, soft and hot, his thumbs grazing her nipples, and when she pulls her tank top over her head he can't stop staring. He's never gotten past second base - at least, Connor Summers never has. As he touches her, he realizes that the other Connor, or Stephen, or whatever his name is, has totally done this before, and if he kind of stretches with his mind, he can remember it. How Cordelia had felt, and what she had liked, and when he slips his hand into Dawn's shorts, he feels for that spot in the front. It must work, because Dawn gasps and pushes into him. "Connor," she says shakily, and he slides a finger into her. She hasn't done this before either, he's willing to bet, and she's shaking all over. He presses his dick against her leg and tries to concentrate on what he's doing. A second finger and she's making little moaning noises, and then he feels her shuddering around his fingers, and her fingernails digging into his shoulder. "Ohmygod," she says. "Connor."

He doesn't know how far he meant for this to go, but not as far as it's going, for sure. She's pulling off his pajama pants before he realizes what's happening and he can't think. Her hand on his cock, oh god, and then they're both naked, skin and the dark and things neither of them want to think about and nobody's home, nobody else is home. Dawn pulls him on top of her and then they're having sex without him consciously deciding to do it, and there are tears in Dawn's eyes, he's pretty sure.

"Are you okay?" Connor says, and tries to hold still. "Are you - "

"Shut up," Dawn says. "Shut up, shut up." She's always been good at dancing, and now she moves her hips the same way she dances, and Coldplay is on the radio, singing, _your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones_, and outside he hears the wind pick up in the trees, rustling. She's tight around him and the breeze from the window smells like rain and her skinny arm is wrapped around his back, and they're not kissing any more. _Turn into something beautiful_. She's got her eyes closed like she's dreaming, and there's sweat shining on her collarbone. He's pretty sure this is the worst thing he's ever done, but he's not sorry.

**

He wakes up alone, like normal, and it isn't until he moves to sit up that he notices that he's naked. Then he remembers the night before and feels sick and hot all over. Dawn's nowhere to be seen.

He showers and slouches downstairs to the kitchen, where there is a herd of Slayers having breakfast. Dawn's somewhere in the middle of them, talking really animatedly to Jen like she doesn't hate all their guts, and she's not looking at Connor. He snags some Cinnamon Toast Crunch and eats it standing up, leaning against the counter on the other side of the kitchen and reading the funny pages.

"Hey," Buffy says from next to the toaster, spreading cream cheese on a bagel. "How's it going? You guys have a good night?"

"What?" he says, more sharply than he means. "Oh. Yes. It was fine." She's looking at him strangely, so he tries to breathe and take it down a notch. He changes the subject. "You guys fix your demon emergency?"

"Yup," Buffy says, and then tells him all about the demons running a chain of juice bars, and what they were putting in the juice. It's pretty gross, but at least it's distracting, and it's kind of nice to be talking to Buffy for a change. He's not even wondering what Dawn's talking about over at the table. By the time he finishes his cereal, she's left the room, and he doesn't go looking for her. The Scoobies are all getting home from overseas, and the house is full and loud and normal again, so that's a relief. He never thought he'd be relieved to see Kennedy and Rona, but life's funny that way.

Xander makes furniture whenever he's home, so Connor goes down to his basement workshop and finds him building bookshelves.

"Hey," Xander says, looking up and smiling. He adjusts his eye patch and rubs his hands on his jeans. "What's up?"

"You need any help?" Connor asks, and he spends the afternoon sanding pieces of wood for Xander to fit together. Hanging around with Xander is restful. They don't talk much, but it's companionable, and there's something about the smell of wood and the repetitive motion that makes Connor feel better.

They work until Giles calls everybody for dinner. He cooks sometimes, when he's home, and it's always better than the slapdash take-out and Easy Mac that they eat otherwise. Connor brushes the sawdust off his jeans, and they go to wash up. Dawn sits at the far end of the table from Connor, and spends the whole time talking to Willow about Sumerian. Lame-o. Connor feels sick every time he sees her. He has to get away.

He starts listening to Giles and Xander talking on his right; Giles is saying something about rare books someone's keeping for him in Portland.

"I don't trust the post," Giles says. "Are you sure you don't mind going to get them?"

"Nah, it's fine," Xander says. "I'm in the mood for a road trip anyway. All those airplanes were getting old."

"You want company?" Connor asks, and Giles and Xander stare at him with identical perplexed looks.

Xander blinks and recovers first. "Sure, if you want to go. It's not going to be exciting, though. Just drive up there, get the books, come back. Two long days of driving and a night in a Best Western. If we're lucky."

"That's fine," Connor says, and takes a drink of milk. "I'm in the mood for a road trip, too." Besides, where else is he going to sleep? Not in their room. Andrew has bunk beds and doesn't ask questions, but that's not something Connor wants to do more than once. Andrew's a little too into pillow talk, seriously.

**

Xander's easy to road trip with. He lets Connor pick the music, and hums along with one hand casually draped on the steering wheel, the other along the windowsill. The sky's a clear, cloudless blue, and they keep the windows down and the music loud, which means they don't talk much. Which is fine by Connor. Xander knows his way around the highways - funny for a guy who'd barely ever left Sunnydale two months ago. Sigur Rós is singing in Icelandic, and it makes the landscape seem kind of sad and beautiful, like something in a movie. Connor watches the trees go by.

They stop at a rest stop after a couple hours, and Connor pees and buys a cherry coke out of the vending machine. Xander gets M&amp;Ms. It's hot as they walk back to the car, the asphalt radiating heat, them squinting in the sun.

"So, what, you got sick of spending every day at the beach?" Xander asks casually, unlocking the doors of their crappy old Toyota. "I mean, not that I'm not glad for the company. But I've hardly seen you or Dawn all summer."

"Yeah," Connor says. His stomach gets all knotted up at the mention of Dawn, but he tries to sound normal. "Yeah, the beach was getting lame."

Xander looks at him over the roof of the car, poised to get in, a look on his face like he sees right through Connor.

Connor clears his throat and slides into his seat, slams the door behind him. Xander does too, starts to put his seatbelt on. "Actually," Connor hears himself saying, "also. There's kind of this girl issue." What is wrong with him? Why is he talking?

"Oh yeah?" Xander says, still completely casual, not changing expression. He starts the car, puts his arm around Connor's seat to turn to look behind them as he backs out of their parking space.

"I met her at the beach," Connor says quickly. "And… uh. Things got complicated. So I just need to get away for a little while."

"Ah," Xander says, putting the car in drive and pulling out. The windows are rolled up and they haven't started the music yet, so it's just the wheels on the pavement, quiet. Connor feels himself getting bright red and he takes a giant swig of cherry coke to keep himself from saying anything else.

"That sucks," Xander says, merging back onto the highway and accelerating. "How complicated are we talking?"

Connor can't look at him, so he swallows and mumbles, "Uh, completely inappropriate sex," at the dashboard.

"Ah," Xander says again, managing to sound completely sympathetic and tactful in just one syllable. Connor doesn't know when he got so grown up and Giles-like. Xander manages to rip open his package of M&amp;Ms with one hand while keeping his eyes on the road. Then he says, "Inappropriate sex, man. I had that when I was 18 too. Of course, then she tried to strangle me, but that's Sunnydale for you." He puts a handful of M&amp;Ms in his mouth, like maybe he's trying to stop himself from talking too.

"Oh yeah?" Connor says. He's trying to think back to who that could have been, but he's not really coming up with anyone. "Did it all turn out okay in the end?"

"Eventually," Xander says. "I guess. Yeah."

"Well, good," Connor says. Was it Cordelia? He can't really see Cordelia trying to kill Xander. Willow? Haha, right. Was it just some random demon?

"I still don't like anybody touching my neck, though," Xander says. He glances over his left shoulder and changes lanes.

"Hey, neither do I," Connor says. "But not because anyone tried to kill me."

"Lucky you," Xander says, and starts the music up, like he's had enough of that conversation. Which is okay. Connor does feel a little better, so, that's something. Because she isn't really his sister. Even if he does remember helping her cut all her Barbies' hair off. Even if the monks did make her out of Buffy. Everybody does stupid things anyway, he's not the only one.

**

Portland's average, but northern California and Oregon are pretty, getting there, so that's something. They go straight to get the rare books, in a little dusty shop that smells like wood chips. It's such a long drive that it's way after closing time, but Xander has an arrangement with the owner, and pays an amazing amount of money without batting an eye. Connor helps him carry the books out. They're big, like the Gutenberg Bible or something, and the feel of the cracked leather bindings triggers Connor into another fake memory, doing research in a hotel with a bunch of people he doesn't really know. He is getting really sick of these weird flashes.

It's late and if they want to drive back in one day, they'll have to get an early start, so they get a motel room for the night and have dinner at a Denny's next door. Connor gets the Moon Over My Hammy, and they talk about comics. Mostly Batman. It's funny to be talking to somebody not Dawn - there's a whole new range of topics to cover, which is all right.

Back in the motel room, Xander sits on one bed in his rumpled t-shirt and flips channels. Connor looks through the rare books, being really careful not to accidentally hurt them. The pages are really fragile. About a third of the way through the first book he looks at, there's a spell for the "Undoing of Enchantments," that's supposed to get rid of any magic that's been plaguing you. Unpleasant dreams, hypnosis, aches and pains, unwanted feelings from love potions, etc. Connor thinks about his weird memory flashes and dreams and reads the spell more carefully. It's pretty straightforward. Connor tells Xander he's going to run across the street to the gas station for a candy bar, but actually he's going for candles and salt, and just gets the Snickers and Milky Way as decoys. He hands Xander the Snickers, and Xander's so intent on a rerun of Farscape that he doesn't even notice Connor has other stuff in the plastic bag.

**

Connor waits until Xander's asleep, snoring in a low, comforting even way, before he goes into the bathroom to do the spell. When he turns on the lights in the bathroom, he has to blink in the brightness, but hey, it's okay. Spells don't need mood lighting to work. He starts to make the circle of salt.

He lights the gas station candles, which are weirdly scented - one of them smells like cookies - and does some patterns with the salt, then takes a deep breath for the incantation. He closes his eyes and tries to stretch out to whatever power is out there that'll stop this magical infestation or fake memory or whatever it is.

Then he says the words and the truth comes rushing in on him all at once.

**

This must be what an asthma attack feels like; he can't breathe. He doesn't know how long he sits there before he can get a grip, curled up in his boxer shorts against the side of the tub. The candles have burned almost all the way down. He can't think. The tile of the floor is cold on his bare legs.

When he gets it together enough to blow out the candles, it smells like a birthday party, like he should be making a wish. He never had a birthday party. Or he had eighteen. He can remember both. He can't. This is crazy.

He has to be okay. He can do this. He feels his neck - it's okay, in one piece. He's all okay. He tries to push down the real memories and concentrate on the fake ones. He's Connor Summers. He has two sisters. He's from Sunnydale.

He's suddenly completely exhausted, fuzzy around the edges, like he wants to sleep forever. Maybe that's a spell side effect. He manages to clean up the bathroom before he turns off the lights and staggers into bed. Xander's still snoring like Angel isn't Connor's father, like he didn't spend his childhood in a hell dimension, like he and Dawn aren't both made of fake memories, like nothing important has happened at all.

**

They get an early start, with a continental breakfast and everything. Connor can't eat. As soon as they're out in the car, he puts on sunglasses and his headphones and tries to nap. He can't really sleep, but when Xander tries to talk to him, he pretends he's dead to the world instead of sitting there quietly freaking out, so that works out. Xander's singing along to the radio, real softly, and drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup, so the smell of it is all through the car. After awhile Xander puts on NPR and they listen to _Car Talk_ and then _This American Life_. Xander laughs a lot. Connor pretends he can't hear it through his headphones.

They stop at a McDonald's for lunch, sit across from each other in a yellow molded plastic booth. Connor pokes at his fries.

"You okay?" Xander asks, halfway through the silent meal.

Connor shrugs.

Xander's watching him. "Oookay," he says, after a minute, and Connor watches the kids in the indoor playground. He eats two Chicken McNuggets and throws the rest away.

**

They get back home really late, almost midnight, and when Connor sees the limo in the driveway he feels like throwing up. Xander looks annoyed. "What's Angel doing here?"

Connor shrugs and slings his backpack over one shoulder, starting to trudge toward the house. He figures that since Angel was in the kitchen last time, he should be able to avoid him by going in the front door, but it backfires and Angel's standing in full view in the living room. He looks at Connor in that weird way again, but now Connor knows what it means. That's his father, who killed him. Awesome.

"Hey, Connor," Angel says, like he can't help himself.

Connor wonders what would happen if he punched him out. He wonders if he still has super-powers. He wonders why Angel comes to see him, when he thinks Connor doesn't know about any of it. "Hey," Connor says. He wants to go upstairs but his feet aren't moving.

Angel comes closer, still looking at Connor like he actually cares what happens to him. Connor mentally recites the four ways to kill vampires: staking, beheading, fire, sunlight. "You having a good summer?" Angel asks. He's almost shy.

Connor's summer: his fake home town got destroyed, he committed fake incest with his fake sister, his fake father won't talk to him, and he found out his whole life has been a lie and actually he's the psycho killer son of two vampires. He can think of better ways to spend a summer. "It's okay, I guess," Connor says. Now he's trapped in the conversation by common courtesy. Apparently manners came along with the fake memories, and they're harder to get rid of. Great.

"You start Stanford in the fall, right?" Angel says. "Are you looking forward to it?"

Staking, beheading, fire, sunlight. Staking, beheading, fire, sunlight. "Yeah, mostly."

"That's a good school," Angel says, and just stands there looking at him like he wants to say something but he's not sure what. It's just about the most awkward conversation Connor has ever had.

Luckily, Buffy walks back into the room at that moment and saves them both. "I finally found it. Sorry it took me so long," she says, carrying an enormous book in both hands. "Oh, hey, Connor. Did you guys just get back?"

"Yeah," Connor says. "I'm gonna go put my stuff upstairs." And he's finally sprinting up the stairs, getting some aggression out by shoving past some Potentials on the landing. He's angry at everyone in his giant lie of a life - the whole thing is ridiculous. He guesses this is how Dawn felt when she found out and cut herself. Which he wasn't even actually there for.

When he slams open the door to the attic, Dawn jumps. She's sitting in one window seat, reading. The radio's on. When she sees him, she automatically goes into the post-incest wariness, and he can't even handle it. She stands up to leave. "Oh, sorry," she says.

He drops his backpack by the door and walks right up to her, pushes her up against the wall, his hips pressed up against hers. Her eyes are wide, and he's so angry he's shaking with it.

"What are you doing?" she whispers.

"Shut up," he says, and kisses her as hard as he can.

**

Afterwards, Dawn wraps a sheet around her and sits on the ping-pong table cross-legged, looking at him. He rubs his face.

"We can't keep doing this," she says.

"I'm not really your brother," Connor says. His voice sounds flat, even to him.

"I know," she says. "But the monks made me out of Buffy, so - "

He interrupts her. "No, I mean, *I'm* not your brother. Not Buffy's either."

He can hear Potentials moving around downstairs, probably getting ready for bed. They always thump around a lot. Dawn's staring at him. "What?"

"I just found out," Connor says. He worries at a threadbare place on his blanket, where it's starting to fray. "I'm just fake memories too. Buffy should be an only child."

"Quit it," Dawn says, wrapping the sheet tighter around her. "That's not funny."

"Tell me about it," Connor says. The radio goes to a furniture store commercial. Dining room set for only nine-ninety-nine. He pulls a thread on the blanket until it breaks.

"Wait, what?" Dawn says. "Okay, whatever, how would you even know?"

"I did this spell," Connor says, teasing out another thread and unraveling it. "I kept having these weird memory flashes, so I did this spell. And I got all my old memories back." He breaks this thread too. "It kind of sucked."

Dawn shifts, and he can tell without looking that she's starting to believe him. "Seriously?" He nods. "So, okay, then who are you really?" she asks.

Connor thinks about Angel and feels sick again. "I don't know. Nobody. I don't want to talk about it."

Dawn pushes her hair out of her eyes, and keeps watching him. "Okay," she says.

He wipes his palms on the blanket and thinks about throwing up. "I haven't told anybody else," he says.

"Oh," Dawn says. They're listening to Kiss 107, not your parents' rock and roll. "So…," she starts again, but then stops. "Well. What now?"

Connor shrugs and lies down on his back, so he can see some stars through the skylight. Simon and Garfunkel start to play - it's the Kiss Whatever Weekend, which apparently means that it *is* in fact your parents' rock and roll. Listen to this record with a candle burning and you'll see your future. "You wanna run away to Nova Scotia?"

He's sort of joking, because the idea of staying in this house another day sounds pretty much unbearable, but he doesn't really mean it. Until Dawn says, "Yeah, sort of."

He sits up again. "Seriously?"

"Yeah," Dawn says, and she does look serious, her hair falling in her eyes, her hands holding up the sheet. It has little flowers on it. "Just for awhile. I just… yeah."

Connor's bag is already packed, and Dawn's ready to go in under an hour. It's easy when almost all your belongings fit into a backpack anyway. They leave Buffy a note, taped to the ping-pong table, which explains almost nothing. What would they say? We found out that we're both fictional, and we've been having really taboo sex, so we can't handle staying here right now, but we'll probably be back before school starts?

Besides, if anyone should know about leaving your loved ones a note and running away because you can't deal, it's Buffy. Their mom cried every day that summer, and Buffy's chair was empty at dinner, and Connor and Dawn talked loudly and cheerfully but it never helped. Connor remembers. So, what goes around comes around, or whatever.

It's tricky to sneak out of the house in the middle of the night when you live with like 20 Slayers who are always in and out, slaying at all hours of the night, but tonight seems to be slow. They creep down the front stairs in jeans and sneakers, ratty backpacks slung over their shoulders, but no one's around. Dawn's wearing Connor's maroon Stanford hoodie, and it fits her about right, which is funny. He almost says something about her wearing it, but doesn't, and then they're out of the house, walking down the middle of the street in the quiet of three a.m. The night air is clear and cool, and on a whim Connor reaches out and grabs her hand. He holds it all the way to the bus station, and she doesn't pull away.

They buy one-way tickets on the first bus leaving, which goes to Seattle - once they're there, they'll figure out where they're really going, and for how long. They split a pack of Skittles while they wait - Dawn likes the orange ones best.

The bus is only half full, and Connor pulls her down the aisle to the very back. They put their feet up on the seats and watch out the windows as the bus drives away, away from Angel, away from Buffy, away from fake memories and Slayers and demons and Hellmouths and Southern California. Dawn leans her head on his shoulder and falls asleep. He rests their clasped hands on his knee and watches the scenery flicker by.


End file.
